Portraits in RPGs

Vault Dweller · Mar 31, 2005

This thread is dedicated to NPC portraits in DIALOGUE WINDOWS in RPGs:

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?
2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc
3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)
4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)
5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Volourn · Mar 31, 2005

"1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?"

No; but it certainly doesn't hinder it.

"2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc"

Good ones.

"3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)"

Small pool of random portraits.

"4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention) "

Not really unless it is a very HOT chick portrait.

"5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?"

No issues either way.

jiujitsu · Mar 31, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Yes, it's nice to see some kind of face.

Vault Dweller said:
2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

I loved the Baldur's Gate portraits.

Vault Dweller said:
3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

No portrait. If they aren't worth remembering then they shouldn't need a portrait to be remembered by.

Vault Dweller said:
4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

Perhaps it would. Maybe if no one had a portrait until you unlocked it through dialogue. That would be cool.

Vault Dweller said:
5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Somewhat sucks. It's nice to have a finely detailed face to recognize them by.

Sol Invictus · Mar 31, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
This thread is dedicated to NPC portraits in DIALOGUE WINDOWS in RPGs:

"1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?"
To a degree, yes, but I read books and there's no pictures in them so I wouldn't be aversely affected if you decide not to put any in the game. You just have to be generous with your descriptions of the characters to allow the player's imagination to work, or he'll be at a loss.

e.g. "You see a giant of a man, with what little hair on his head parted to one side, his muscles bulging out of his chest, but inspite of his muscles, he still manages to look rather fat. He has a big mustache. He looks at you and greets you with a warm smile that only a father could have."

"2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc"
Ones with lots of detail and don't look like retarded caricatures. If you make them like Avernum's you shouldn't even bother. Baldur's Gate 2 had good portraits. I'd very much like to see some standard 'style' to the portraits, rather than a mish mash of several styles and several different artists, as was the case with Neverwinter Nights. It's more cohesive that way. Like it'd not much make sense if your game had a soundtrack that consisted of Trance as well as Heavy Metal. They just don't go together. Pick one and stick with it.

"3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)"
No portrait. They aren't important.

"4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)"
It would affect my immersion but in a positive way. It makes me know that the character I'm dealing with is worth my while, and more importantly, he's an actual character my character could associate to rather than a generic NPC. It's similar to how important characters in Fallout had descriptions associated to them if they didn't have Talking Head screens. Planescape Torment had the character list with big portraits, and it improved immersion to a degree.

I just hope your artists can draw, because it would stink to see some 'pretty girl' drawn like some generic, ugly woman.

"5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?"
That would really suck. Using in-game avatars means you're skimping on art resources.

Vault Dweller · Mar 31, 2005

Volourn said:
"2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc"

Good ones.

That goes without saying, but is there any preference about styles (realistic, exaggerated in regard to personality, cartoonish, comics-style, etc)

jiujitsu said:
Perhaps it would. Maybe if no one had a portrait until you unlocked it through dialogue. That would be cool.

And how would you handle that? At what point would a portrait be unlocked?

Exitium said:
I just hope your artists can draw, because it would stink to see some 'pretty girl' drawn like some generic, ugly woman.

Trust me, my artists can draw. I know that I can't get a high quality in-game graphics, but I can and I will balance that out with bitching art (location overviews, items, character concepts that you can see in the journal, sorta like what PST did, etc)

Edit:

I'd very much like to see some standard 'style' to the portraits, rather than a mish mash of several styles and several different artists

If we do the portraits, we'll pick one artist to do them all.

Surlent · Mar 31, 2005

I like the sound of only important NPCs having portraits. Especially if you don't have time/resources to make a portrait for every character. Like in BG series, when you saw a character with portrait (Irenicus and her sis for example) you knew immediately they were important ppl and paid attention to what they were saying.

I don't see it problem if generics either have or don't have portrait. You'd end up using same portraits for lot of characters. Special case; times when a generic says something important or relevant to game progress might be annoying, if you don't pay much attention to what generics have to say.

For art style, IWD is the winner. But with only upper torso showing, it's more suitable for a picture of a speaker. Gives the impression of someone near you. And this way you still get to see those hot nakkid elf boobs. But I guess your game doesn't have elves in it ? Anyway it's more aesthetic choice.

Ingame avatars look cool, but hate say this, often when the graphics are good. For example in Dawn of War, they had amazing ingame graphics and they did every cutscene ingame.

Vault Dweller · Mar 31, 2005

Surlent said:
Ingame avatars look cool, but hate say this, often when the graphics are good.

Good point. Guess in-game avatars are no longer an option :lol:

Screaming_life · Mar 31, 2005

Maybe you could add a little animation to the portraits like a simple fade to show the emotion of the person you're talking to?

So you tell someone to shove it and their portrait changes to an angry one (or laughing one depending on your intimidation skill!

)

Human Shield · Mar 31, 2005

Protraits instantly point out who is important and I think the player should know who is important like in real life. Even without protraits, the player should know store owners, nobles, and guard leaders from their outfits and location.

If useless looking person is important for a story he should approach the character instead of expecting the player to talk to everyone. Their in-game model should be different from the surrounding ones.

I also liked basic float text for unimportant people instead of annoying dialog screens, liked this in Fallout. The player could ask the peasant some info but it should be apparent that they would get any big stuff from it.

ElastiZombie · Mar 31, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Yes, I like to put a face to a name myself and it can add more overall flavour to the game.

Vault Dweller said:
2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

It depends on the style of the game. If you have a serious themed game, you don't want more cartoony portraits staring at you. I personally liked ToEE and the IWD games' portraits.

Vault Dweller said:
3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

I like the idea of a small pool of generic portraits, but that could add up as extra work quickly, I imagine.

Vault Dweller said:
4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

You could always take it that important characters would be particularily noticable. Some sort of glow of greatness or dark cloud of evil or wossname. They would naturally stand out anyway.

Vault Dweller said:
5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Hard to say. Kinda depends on the implementation, and how detailed/expressive the avatars happen to be. Can you give some examples?

Vault Dweller · Mar 31, 2005

Screaming_life said:
Maybe you could add a little animation to the portraits like a simple fade to show the emotion of the person you're talking to?

We can't have Fallout-like talking heads, and anything else wouldn't make sense.

Human Shiled said:
I also liked basic float text for unimportant people instead of annoying dialog screens

Yeah, I like the floats too. There's no reason to open up a dialogue window if the character has nothing to say.

ElastiZombie said:
It depends on the style of the game. If you have a serious themed game, you don't want more cartoony portraits staring at you. I personally liked ToEE and the IWD games' portraits.

By cartoony I meant ToEE style. They were less realistic then IWD portraits, and I recall many people bitching about the cartoon-ish quality of ToEE portraits when the first screens were released.

Hard to say. Kinda depends on the implementation, and how detailed/expressive the avatars happen to be. Can you give some examples?

Well, you saw the characters on that first screen I posted earlier. That's still an early stage, but overall, that's the look. Throw in some weapons, add some shine to the armor, tweak the model a bit, and that's about it.

Major_Blackhart · Mar 31, 2005

1. I think having portraits helps to put some sort of appearance to the character. one thing tho is to have a large number of character portraits for you to choose from.

2. I'd say the style I prefer might be something like Arcanum, simply because they are just of the face, not of the entire upper body, and as such they don't really show what type of character you are.

3. I'd say a pool (maybe 4-8) randomly picked portraits that are not available to the player.

4. Well, having the talking heads didn't effect my immersion with FO or FO2, and specialized portraits and voices not with Arcanum either, so prolly not. I do actually prefer for party members and important NPC's some sort of face or voice to go with the character. For me, it gives them that extra ooomph of personality.

5. I'd say that if the avatars are detailed enough that you can tell them apart from other characters then yes it's fine. If the detail however is maybe something small barely noticeable tho, then no.

Greatatlantic · Mar 31, 2005

When it comes to ingame portraits, I think I like the Arcanum approach the best. The pictures fit into the universe perfectly, though at the time I thought they were ugly... Then for unimportant characters, they just used some symbols instead of faces. Like zombies had a skull and crossbone for their "faces". Then gaurds would have swords and shields sort of thing. Something to keep in mind. Oh, and they only make the game better. But be warned, they have a lot of effect on the art direction of the game. So if they stink, it can hurt the game.

Screaming_life · Mar 31, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
Screaming_life said:

Maybe you could add a little animation to the portraits like a simple fade to show the emotion of the person you're talking to?

Click to expand...

We can't have Fallout-like talking heads, and anything else wouldn't make sense.

You probably did understand what i said and just think it's a shit idea but in case you didn't...

I didn't really mean "animation" as such more just a straight swap between portraits. So for each character (or meaningfull character) you have a set of portraits, one normal, one happy, one sad etc. then during dialogue the portraits change depending on your questions or answers to reflect that characters emotion.

ElastiZombie · Mar 31, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
ElastiZombie said:

It depends on the style of the game. If you have a serious themed game, you don't want more cartoony portraits staring at you. I personally liked ToEE and the IWD games' portraits.

Click to expand...

By cartoony I meant ToEE style. They were less realistic then IWD portraits, and I recall many people bitching about the cartoon-ish quality of ToEE portraits when the first screens were released.

I don't mind it if it is cartoony if it fits the theme/mood of the game. I thought that it was appropriate for ToEE. I'm not sure exactly what you are going for with your game, but I would guess that it is leaning more towards the serious. In that case, the style of the IWD portraits would be more like it. I'm a sucker for the painted look they went for in those games and I believe was used in the character design images you see when installing Vampire:Bloodlines.

Vault Dweller said:
ElastiZombie said:

Hard to say. Kinda depends on the implementation, and how detailed/expressive the avatars happen to be. Can you give some examples?

Click to expand...

Well, you saw the characters on that first screen I posted earlier. That's still an early stage, but overall, that's the look. Throw in some weapons, add some shine to the armor, tweak the model a bit, and that's about it.

Oh, I see now. I forgot about the soldier guys at the side. So you would just put the entire sprite into the dialogue screen? That would work for generic NPCs, but I would still consider full portraits for important characters. I was thinking NWN where you just zoom in on the person you are talking to was the sort of thing you were talking about.

Walks with the Snails · Apr 1, 2005

I like portraits, and just for important people. The adventurer who goes and talks to every townsperson, breaking down doors to do so if necessary is a CRPG artifice anyway that I don't miss if it's not there. If I'm new to town and want to know what's up, I'll go talk to the bartender, or go talk to the mayor's secretary, who sets me up to talk with the mayor. I won't walking down the street pumping everything that moves for information, even attempting to strike up conversation with dogs, cows, and chickens in the odd chance they can speak. It's nice to have some cues from the game designer so you don't have to presume maybe they threw in something wacky (Goose #10 will lay a golden egg for you if you ask nicely, and there's a +10 sword hidden under the bum's mattress, no way in hell you'll ever guess that unless you spend 20 hours interacting with every pixel in the game).

DarkSign · Apr 1, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Yes! Definitely. It gives a much more intimate and detailed feel to the game.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e.

Oddly enough, Wasteland. Simple face with a bit of background. Perhaps a simple animation.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

Despite what everyone else is saying, IMO its good for continuity and to keep up the feeling of intimacy. Basically its a cheap way of having better graphics.

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

I could live with it, but wouldnt love it.

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

It sucks. Terrible way to cop-out.

Stark · Apr 1, 2005

Vault Dweller said:
1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

yes. Especially during dialog. it gives the player (me) a sense of perspective. Failing that, good verbal description of a person, as Exitium described, is fine too.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

All are fine with me. IWD has the nicest ones though.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

a pool of generic ones. Failing that (due to too much work), you may consider substituting generic ones with textual desciption. reserving portraits for only important NPCs.

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

see above.

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

err... having seen your screenshot.... no.

Wulfgar · Apr 1, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Yes, big time.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

BG - teh best.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

Either no portraits, or "all guards have the same portraits".

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

Definitely.

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Sucks.

Saran · Apr 1, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Shit game, doesnt really make a difference.

If its a good game, then yea, it can help with immersion, but only if the dialogue is up to scratch.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

Baldurs Gate Series and Icewind Dale were both very good (BG2 was superior to BG in this regard IMHO, but all of the scars was a bit silly, yes its realistic, but these people have healing spells, surely you can heal up the scars aswell?)

NWN had decent portraits, but due to the disgracefull way henchmen were handled it didnt really make a difference as far as immersion was concerned.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

Like some have already stated, just have a bunch of them that get handed out at random to the various generic NPC's.

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

Yep, its a good way to handle it if you dont have the time/patience to draw a sizeable stock of portraits for generic NPC's

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Depends really on the graphics (I can hear "GRAPHICS WHORE!" and "STUPID CUNT!" already

), i mean this in the nicest way possible vd, but if you had the latest 3d engine, yea, it would work like a charm, but from what ive seen of your project thats a no-no, so it would probably look something awful.

Again, not meant as a dig at your game or anything, just a statement of fact, warcraft 3 did a pretty decent job for its time, but if they had tried it in the first BG for instance it would have looked like a hairy wart on Lucifers sweaty red arse.

So its something that varies from game to game, a graphical "If you've got it, flaunt it" situation pretty much.

k_bits · Apr 1, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

A little. It certainly adds to the ambience. I recall many a "oooh ahhh" moment when I first saw the animated portraits in MMII (I think it was II).

IOW - they add to it, but aren't vital. I do like em tho

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer?

Bards tale, Wing Commander, Might and Magic, those old apogee game (traffic department 2192). Small animated pic.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs?

Show picture of NPC avatar.

Vault Dweller · Apr 1, 2005

k_bits said:
Show picture of NPC avatar.

I posted a screen in this thread

Stark said:
err... having seen your screenshot.... no.

That bad, huh? :lol:

DarkSign said:
Oddly enough, Wasteland. Simple face with a bit of background. Perhaps a simple animation.

Why oddly? I fucking LOVE portraits from old games, especially Wasteland. They were much more descriptive than any of those pseudo-realistic gay-ass crap we have today.

Walks with the Snails said:
I won't walking down the street pumping everything that moves for information, even attempting to strike up conversation with dogs, cows, and chickens in the odd chance they can speak.

Agree. That's just bad design, imo.

mrmarcus · Apr 1, 2005

"1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?"

I think so. It adds to the general feel of the setting.

"2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc"

BG.

"3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)"

I wouldn't bother. If you choose to use pics, use the same pic for each - sure it's unrealistic that they would all look the same, but it's a clear indicator that this person is not important.

"4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)"

Yep.

"5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?"

That would be determined by the graphics quality of the game engine. Where in high-graphic enviroments like the FF series or Bloodlines the in-game system was able to work I don't think it would have been effective in Arcanum or Fallout, and I tended to dislike the way it was handled by Warcraft III.

Andyman Messiah · Apr 17, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

No, but I think it's a nice touch to have some kind of image of the character(s). Gives them some small deal of personality and such.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

Style? I really don't care, but I guess I liked the Infinity-engine games portraits best of those games you have there.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

Small pool of generic portraits.

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

Sure, if you encounter a character who doesn't look like the others you know it's something important and you need to pay attention since there might be quests and shit involved, so yeah I suppose so. Then again, without special portraits the game will be much nicer for people who doesn't need any indicators of that kind. :wink:

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

I'm gonna stay neutral on this. Everything might work and everything might go to hell. I don't know.

Ismaul · Apr 19, 2005

1) Does having the portraits improve your gameplay experience?

Yes. But the most important thing is, IMO, having an ambiant interface to look at, one that pleases the eye (I feel like I'm starting to repeat myself :oops:

). Fallout, for example, used mostly in-game avatars, and it worked well because they had a moody interface.

2) What style of the portraits do you prefer? Please use games for reference, i.e. Daggerfall, BG, IWD, ToEE, etc

I mostly prefer the BG/IWD style. ToEE is a bit too cartoony for me.

3) What's the best way to deal with generic NPCs? (no portrait, one generic portrait - i.e. all guards have the same portraits, small pool (3-4) of generic portraits to be picked randomly, or something else)

A small pool would be nice, but might be too much work. The important thing to keep in mind is the dialogue interface. If you have some portraits, you are going to have a dedicated space in your interface for it. Now if you don't give generic NPCs portraits, you are going to end up with a blank space. You don't want that. The alternative would be to have, like greatatlantic suggested, Arcanum-style generic symbols for types of NPCs.

Whatever you do it will be nice, really. Only if too much NPCs end up with the same portrait (one not being a representative of a profession), you'd better switch to symbolic portraits.

4) If only important NPCs have portraits (let's say 20-40 depending on the definition of important), would that affect your immersion? (i.e. the presence of a portrait indicates that you must wake up and pay attention)

Not really. Fallout did this and it was fine. Anyways, you're going to pay attention because the character (his social status/reputation) is important. So having a portrait or not doesn't change that. Oh, and remember that having 20-40 NPCs with portraits means you've got to fill the space up for all the other NPCs or design an alternative interface.

5) What about using in-game avatars instead of portraits? Does it really suck, somewhat suck, or doesn't suck at all?

Well, I wouldn't really go for it. Arcanum symbols work better if you have limited resources.

Portraits in RPGs

Commissar, Red Star Studio

Pretty Princess

Cipher

Erudite

Commissar, Red Star Studio

Liturgist

Commissar, Red Star Studio

Liturgist

Augur

Liturgist

Commissar, Red Star Studio

Codexia Lord Sodom

Erudite

Liturgist

Liturgist

Erudite

Erudite

Liturgist

Scholar

Scholar

Scholar

Commissar, Red Star Studio

Novice

Mr. Ed-ucated

Thought Criminal #3333